Funferal

Defamation and religion

In a rather interesting intervention, the Turkish government has called on the European Union to extend their anti-defamation laws to ensure respect for Islam. The claim is that European countries often have anti-defamation legislation to prevent attacks on certain religions, but don’t cover Islamaphobic remarks.
EU Observer suggest that the comments are aimed at legislation in certain EU countries criminalizing certain types of anti-semitic commentary.
They might also be aimed at anti-blasphemy legislation if that covers only certain religions.
In Ireland, our general defamation legislation is currently very strict, though this differs somewhat from the concept of defamation against religion. The Irish constitution states that:

The publication or utterance of blasphemous, seditious, or indecent matter is an offence which shall be punishable in accordance with law.

My guess, and I stand to be corrected by any of my more learned readers, is that blasphemy could be interpreted as a form of criminal defamation – that is, while defamation against an individual can be treated as a civil or criminal matter, with criminal prosecutions being very rare, blasphemy would be a criminal matter. I seem to recall a case against a national newspaper (which, if memory serves, failed) within the last 5 years, but charges for blasphemy are rare.
Personally I’m very wary of calls for criminalizing of speech, particularly speech relating to religion. Given that religions differ in their basic worldviews – and that atheists and agnostics, among others, differ in turn – a universal ban on blasphemy and defamation of religion seems unworkable, oppressive, and, in short, wrong. Sensitivity to the concerns of others, particularly minority groups, is a laudable social goal, but criminalizing such speech is inappropriate.